EQUIDS:

The quagga was native to desert areas of the African continent until it was exterminated in the wild in the 1870s. Two hundred years ago, their were great herds of Quagga. Now there are none. The Quagga was hunted to extinction by hunters and European settlers, who used their skins for grain bags, and prized them for their colors and patterns.

More than 20 years after wild Quaggas had disappeared, there was one remaining captive Quagga. That last Quagga died on 12 August 1883, at Amsterdam Zoo.

Above: The last Quagga, at Amsterdam Zoo.

(Picture reproduced from 'Zoo 2000 - A look behind the bars' by Jeremy Cherfas)

The Quagga is a cousin of the horse, the Wild Ass, and the Zebra. Like the Zebra, the Quagga can run up to 40 mph. They are herbivorous, eating grass and browsing on shrubs. A single foal is born in spring. Early European settlers in South Africa tried to tame them. But try as they might, the farmers couldn't train the Quagga to pull ploughs. Quaggas were more difficult to tame than Zebras, and Zebras are well known for their innate wildness of spirit and pride. But Farmers did find them useful in one way. They would leave the Quagga with the cattle. The Quagga would protect the cattle from the Hyenas by kicking them hard and repeatedly and driving them away.

Geographic Range: Neotropical: A native of southern Africa, the Quagga used to occur in vast herds in the Karoo regions of Cape Province and the southern part of Orange Free State. It is now extinct.

Habitat: Quaggas were often found in arid to temperate grasslands, and sometimes wetter pastures.

Physical Characteristics: Weight: 250 to 300 kg / 500 to 770 lbs. The height at the withers is from 4 to 5 feet (53 inches)

The quagga (Equus quagga) is recently extinct. It was closely related to horses and zebras. The Quagga was a relative of the Burchell's Zebra, Equus burchelli, and differed mainly in the degree of striping. The Burchell's Zebra has black stripes on a white background, with brownish "shadow" stripes in between. There is much variability in this pattern, and some Burchell's Zebras have virtually unstriped hindquarters. Museum specimens of the Quagga have dark stripes on the head and neck, but further back the stripes become paler and the interspaces darker, until they merge into a plain brownish color. It is also interesting to note that zebra stripes are like human fingerprints -- no two zebras have the same stripe pattern, which makes it easy to identify individuals.

Food Habits: The quagga was a successful grazer though they often competed with the more numerous wildebeest which frequently occurred in the same areas. Quaggas were often the first of the grazers to enter tall grass vegetation or possibly wet pastures. (Skeleton, 1992)

Behaviour: Quaggas lived in large herds that almost always contained life-long family members. When members of the herd became separated, the family stallion located the stray using a unique call that was taken up by the rest of the herd. Should any member be sick or crippled, the whole herd protected it by adjusting its pace to accommodate the slowest member. These families had home ranges as small as 11 m square (30 km square) in the best habitat, but they could extend it to over 232 mi square (600 km square) in migratory populations. (Skeleton, 1992)

Quaggas were a somewhat diurnal species. At night they preferred to be on short pastures relatively safe from ambush. Though they grazed individually an hour or so at a time at night, they moved about very little. While the herd slept, at least one herd member remained standing and alert. At daybreak in warm weather, herds began filing to pastures of longer grass and could cover over 10 m (17 km) before settling for another night. The mass movements of herds occurred between pastures and sleeping grounds, stopping for water at midday. (Hannover Zoo Animals, 1991)

For quaggas, like in all zebras, there was always a daily ritual in hygiene. Individuals stood side by side nibbling on one another's hard-to-reach areas such as the neck, mane, and back, to rid each other of parasites. Often the oxbird could be seen riding on the animals' backs, providing the same service. (Hannover Zoo Animals, 1991)

Reproduction: Quaggas were polygynous animals, meaning that there was one mature male for each group,or "harem," of females. To become a harem stallion, a male had to abduct fillies in heat one at a time from their father's herds. Fillies began ovulating and advertising oestrus by adopting a distinctive posture between one and two years of age. Many stallions gathered around a herd that included an oestrus filly and fought for her with the herd stallion, and with each other. This occurred 5 days every month for about a year until the filly finally conceived. Though foals may be born in any month, there was a definite annual birth/mating peak early in December to January, which corresponds to the rain season in East Africa. Mares that were in good condition reproduced at 2-year intervals, having their first foal at 3 to 3.5 years. (Skeleton, 1992)

Status: Extinct. The last Quagga died in the Amsterdam Zoo in Holland on 12 August 1883. The last wild Quagga in South Africa was probably killed by hunters few years before that, perhaps in 1878. (S. Africas Threatened Wildlife, 1993)

Though the South African Red Data Book refers to the Quagga as an extinct species, recent evidence has confirmed that it was actually a subspecies of the Burchell's Zebra. The South African Museum in Cape Town has now embarked on a project to selectively breed Burchell's Zebras with minimal striping on their hindquarters, until the same color pattern as the Quagga can be perhaps be re-created.

Przewalski's Horse is also known as the Asiatic or Mongolian Wild Horse. It was first discovered in 1881 by Polish Colonel Nikolai M. Przewalski. It lives in the Tachin Schara Nuru Mountains (the Mountains of the Yellow Horses) on the western fringe of the Gobi Desert.

The Asiatic Wild Horse is one of the basic types from which all horses have evolved. It has hardly changed since the Ice Age, and herds have freely roamed in a genuinely wild state since then. A lot of the herds of horses around the world which are claimed to be wild, are usually feral horses. eg:- American Mustangs and Australian Brumbies were originally imported by settlers hundreds of years ago, and escaped to live and breed in a 'wild' state for centuries. Other types of horses and ponies which have evolved exclusively in the wild are often rounded up once a year for counting purposes, and to sell surplus animals (eg: British Native ponies are rounded up yearly, in some areas). Przewalski's Horse has lived in a pure wild state since it evolved, and has never ever been rounded up or had any other human contact.

The reasons that the Przewalski's Horse has changed so little since the Ice Age are thanks to it's immensely inhospitable habitat and extremely aggressive behaviour. As well as physical power and enormous stamina, the Asiatic Wild Horse is also very strong and brave mentally. Stallions and even two-year-old colts will attack and kill invading males long before they get near to the mares. Runaway domestic mares are usually too weak, lacking in endurance, insufficiently hardy to withstand the extreme conditions of the Tachin Schara Nuru Mountains and neighbouring Gobi Desert.

There are a few groups of Przewalski's Horse living in Zoos and Safari Parks, but they have proved very difficult to keep in captivity because of their aggressiveness and specialised herding behaviour. They need an extremely large area to roam in, which is often beyond the capacity of most Zoos and Wildlife Parks. If confined in too small an area, aggression between animals becomes intense. Stallions may start to chase mares not in season, biting their flanks and being extremely hostile. Accidents have happened where horses have run into or through fences in an attempt to escape from an angry herd-mate.

Przewalski's Horses are always dun in colour, usually with dark mane, tail and legs. The muzzle is pale or mealy, and sometimes the belly and inner parts of the legs. There is often an eel-stripe or dorsal stripe along the back, and zebra stripes on the forearms, hocks and gaskins.

Only a few Przewalski's Horses (probably less than 100) remain in the wild today, as it has been hunted near to extinction, and human settlement is now beginning to encroach on it's natural habitat.